Connecticut western news., 1887-05-18
THE ESTAY-AT-HOME.
A SOUTHERN SKETCH,

A SOUTHERN ShETCd.
 Everybody knew where Davenport's was, and everybody m de pilgrimages to it in the hour of need. No matter whether the need took the form of a spool of sewing silk or iron castings for gin stands-somewhere among Daven- ports heterogeneous stock it was sure to be found. Davenport" sported no sign. It was proudly independent of any such fictitious aids of prominence. As we'll label the country court house as plaster sign on Davenport's time -hon- ored front. There was but one court house and one Davenport's and honors were easy between them in Slowville. Furthermore (apropos of sign), human ingenuity would have been staggered to compose any inscription for sign that would have been mcasurably descrip- tive of the olla podrida on Davenport's shelves.
 Mail day was Davenport's harvest day but matters within the store must be pressing indeed to force Davenport him self behind the counter. He looked curiously out of placo weighing plug to- bacco or drawing quart of black mo- lasses in payment for dozen eggs. There was totally irreconciliab'o in- -congruity between him and his sur roundiugs. He had the build of an athlete, and was one, without any scen- tific training. His head, superbly shaped, and set squarely on Q coIumnar throat, was covered thickly with yell low mass of short curls, and his chin with long silky beard of the same col or. His eyes were blue and brightAand penetrating. A pure Saxon type was Davenport, with general suggestion of great physical strength and dclibera ate purpose about him. If the gray store with its assured income had not come to him by inheritance, doubtless he would have dono something with himself in the world. As it was, he shirked the tobacco box and the molasses barrel whenever practicable, and in the long summer days, when there was not much doing, he read Keats and Coleridgc with oblivious delight on the long store gall lery, fighting flies with one hand all the while. He had never been away from home to school, "couldn't be spared from the storc." He had grown up in it, but has never grown into it. Hidden somc- where in that muscular organism of his wns dumb unsatisfed longing for bet. ter things to do and U be than fate had So far accorded him. When the wal lroke out it was with an envious pano he saw other fellows go off to the field. He would have loved to go with them, but, looking his duty squarely in tho face by the best light he had, there seemed to be a stronger call to stay al home. He grew into monster in loca estimation. His staying out of tho army had secured him the contempt of tn, neighborhood; his busy, earnest specu- lation excited its disgust and horror Even in the little house behind th, pomesranate bushes there were cloud and distrust. Davenporrs wife was nc longer proud of him. She hung he head for him, and he knew it-knew it and winced under it silently, ant thought enviously of the men who wer
 off with the army, i,hting and bein;
 wounded. He would gladly have ex
 changed his wound for theirs.
 | When the river was blockaded and al
 the country on both sides of the Missis
 sippi, from Vicksburg to New Orleans
 was virtually in stage of siege, peopl
 said: "Now Davcnport's hour of trump
 had come," and those who had bee
 most open in denouncing him recalle
 their rash words respectfully. What the
 had said was all true, of course, but
 had better been left unsaid, for in a
 the country nowhere but at Davenport
 were medicines or sugar, and tea, an
 meal, and everything that went to sus tain life to be procured. The grnde ceased grinding and the great mill whec
 stood motionless. The ungathered crol stood in the fields, at the mercy of ma
 rauding cattle. A universal paialys
 seized upon the land. Paliid-face women asked, What next2
 Yes, Davenports hour of triumph Ina comel He did not call it his hour triumph. He simply said that ha befallen which he had known q along must come. Then, juli : sly, wisely, patiently, he b gan his ministrations, meting out cor , fort of material sort with tho stel impartiality of judge on the lenc and the patient tenderness of a Josel yearning over his suffering brcthrc D Nothing that led to the relief of nece t sity was too remote for his acute gra ' of the situation, nothing too minute D secure his attention. Without price e gave up his hoarded substance, and lol t after white sugar became a luxury t d costly for consumption on the table j. the little white cottage, Randolph Fal d fax's wife had 1t on hers. There h.
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